Hear Me Now

by Melyssa Winchester

  Listening to him, taking in everything she did tonight in an effort to protect me, wanting to believe what he’s telling me about the way I feel and me wanting to do the right thing, it’s almost too much to take. As much as I believe I’m wrong for her, she’d be better off without me, I know that won’t ever work for me. I won’t be able to let this girl go; especially now and there’s no sense trying.

  If Kayden’s right and she feels the same way about me as I do about her and I’m pretty damn positive that’s the case after the conversation we had earlier, then there’s only one thing left for me to do.

  It’s time for me to get her back and this time, make sure she never leaves again.

  Putting the paper on the side of the bed, despite the pain in my jaw and the way my lips seem to be super glued together, I clear my throat and force them to open. If I’m going to do this then I’m gonna do it without the pen and paper.

  “I need your help.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Cadence

  I don’t know whose bright idea it was to turn the prom into a masquerade ball, but whoever it was, I’m going to kick them in the balls for it.

  After spending the last four days holed up in my bed, milking my bruised back with my mom in an effort to get me out of the date with Eric, this is the last place I want to be.

  My mom saw through every pathetic attempt I made to avoid being here and forced my hand the night before when she walked in with the mask and told me exactly what the theme would be. She listed all of the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea to bail despite my desperate need to do otherwise and well now I’m here, feeling as awkward and out of place as ever.

  Everything she said is right and I do still want to see this through for Eric, but being here especially after what happened at the beginning of the week, doesn’t feel right. I saw the way he looked at me when he picked me up tonight, how weird he was acting standing by my front door. He was fidgeting and sweating and his smile, it was different.

  The way he feels about me, the things Dillon told me, they’re all true and being here with him now, it’s wrong. He might have asked me to this so he didn’t have to go alone the way he told me, but there was more behind it and knowing that is only going to make this end badly for everyone.

  He doesn’t realize it because I played it off earlier when he asked, but I left my heart with the broken brown eyed boy in the hospital. It doesn’t matter how much time passes, I’ll never be able to give it to another person even though if I could, Eric would be someone I would want to give it to.

  When the doctor gave me the all clear, explaining to me that the only thing wrong with me was something a good night’s sleep would cure, my mom went to find Kayden so she could take me home. She doesn’t realize it, but when I told her I wanted to use the restroom before leaving, that wasn’t where I ended up.

  Despite her warning that what he endured would be too hard for me to see, I still had to do it. So when they rounded the corner and out of my sight, I went to the nurse’s station, writing Dillon’s name on a piece of paper and passing it to her and within a couple of minutes she lead the way to his room. When I went in, he was sleeping but I saw just how bad it really was. Leaving, even though I knew I had to do it was hard but staying would have been worse.

  The way he looked in the barn before I closed my eyes, it was bad but that was worse. Seeing things hooked to his chest, the machines lighting up with every breath he took, the IV sticking out of his hand and running up his arm, it was horrible. He never should have been in that barn to begin with.

  Guilt never really goes away whether you’re entirely at fault or not and standing here now, in this gym full of people I don’t even know, it’s eating me alive. I’m guilty for pushing Dillon to fight, I’m guilty for leading Eric on even though it wasn’t intentional. It’s all my fault.

  My mom told me this morning that he’d been released from the hospital and sent home with his mom and it should have made me feel better, but all it did was tie the knot in my stomach up worse. The last place he needs to be is with a mother that has no clue what he’s really going through. I’m thankful he didn’t end up with his dad, Bruce being picked up, along with some others for running a fight club, but his mother wasn’t any better.

  I had no idea where he should have been, but home wasn’t it.

  She asked me if I wanted to go by to see him and I did, but after the things I said, calling us a game, telling him it was over, I figured that I would be the last person he would want to see. It didn’t matter how much I love him, what I said, the things I did, it meant I had to stay away.

  Admitting how I feel or what I believe my feelings to be, it’s easier now and despite how wrong we seem to be for each other, what I feel isn’t. He was right that day at the ravine. What’s between us, no matter where we go, is a beginning with no end. The way I feel about him, it won’t ever end.

  I’m going to carry a little piece of Dillon with me for the rest of my life.

  Sensing the touch before it comes, I look up and see Eric standing in front of me, a clear plastic cup extended out in front of him, a smile his way of greeting. Taking it and bringing it to my lips, blocking all thoughts of Dillon and what happened four days ago from my head I smile in return before drinking the entire cup down in one swallow.

  “You didn’t ask if it was spiked.” He says and I smile. “I could have been trying to get you drunk.”

  I’m so thirsty, I’ll take it, spiked or not. I sign out to him, my eyes falling away and back to the room around me.

  Brushing me with his hand, he waits until I’m looking directly at him and speaks again.

  “Do you feel like dancing?”

  If I had my way, I would spend the rest of the night standing right where I am now, at least I would until he finally got bored and took me home, but with my mom chaperoning the event, there’s no way she’d let me. I’ve already spied her eyes on me a total of ten times already and I’m afraid to push it and see what other looks she’d level me with.

  Nodding slowly, I place my hand in his and let him lead me to the dance floor. Even with the mask on my face, the eye holes a little too small for my liking, I can see the looks people are giving us as we start to dance. It’s pretty obvious I’m the deaf girl and they’re all trying to figure out how I can dance when I can’t hear the music.

  I don’t need to hear the music to know how to move. When you have a partner like Eric, who understands and can take the lead, I can dance so flawlessly it will appear like there’s nothing wrong with me at all. I’m just another average girl out in the middle of the gym, dancing with a beautiful guy.

  After spinning me around a few times, bringing me in close and me pulling away, his demeanor changes. The last time he spun me around, he’d done it with a smile and now, his face is empty. Pulling me to him and turning me around, the other couples continuing to dance around us, I see why there was a change.

  Dillon’s here.

  Time seems to stop as we just stare at each other, his eyes I’m sure mirroring the look in my own. As shocked as I am to see him here with the list of injuries Kayden told me he had, I’m determined not to let him see it.

  “Can I cut in?” he says and turning back to Eric he nods his head, giving his okay, leaving the choice of whether or not Dillon dances with me completely in my hands.

  With the voice inside me screaming to accept and Eric now backing away and making his way to the other side of the room, I nod and watch as he moves forward and slides his one arm around my back, taking his other hand and bringing mine up into it.

  The minute his body makes contact with mine, it takes everything I have in me not to melt from the way it feels. With the way he brings me into him, my eyes are level with his neck and I’m afraid to look up. Staring at him before he asked to cut in, I noticed the damage the fight had done but avoided breaking from the pain of it. Now, I’m afraid to look up and see it again because the last thing I want him to fe
el being here like this is that I feel bad for him.

  Moving me around the floor, his movements are slow and deliberate and I start to wonder what kind of song is playing, as the other people around us are all still moving at the same pace. The way he’s moving, it’s as if he’s doing it to his own music, a slower song and one that only he can hear.

  I’ve never wanted to hear something so much in my life.

  After we’ve moved in a complete circle, he looks down at me and his eyes, dark as always, are tender, glowing a little as we continue to move under the lights above us. Where the mask covers my entire face, his is wide open and it’s relaxed, almost as if he’s feeling the same thing in this moment as I am.

  Seeing his lips part, knowing he’s about to speak, I lift my finger up and place it to his lips. I can’t let him talk until he answers something for me first.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You saved my life. There’s nowhere else I need to be.”

  I always wondered what it would feel like to be a completely solid being one second and suddenly turn into a puddle on the floor and with what he said, I’m experiencing it firsthand. My legs feel rubbery, relying on him even more to keep me moving around the room and my head feels lightheaded.

  “How many trucks this time? I ask, attempting to lighten the mood in order to call attention away from the way every part of me seems to be falling apart and he smiles before answering.

  “One very big truck. From what I hear, you got run over too.”

  There’s nothing funny about what we experienced, but him smiling at me, there’s no way I can ignore it. When I asked the question this had been the reaction I’d been looking for and I’m so glad he didn’t disappoint.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you tonight.”

  “I refer you to the answer I gave to your first question. Nowhere else I need to be, Caddy.”

  His body tenses and despite how close we already are, he brings me even closer and trying to turn in order to see what’s causing this reaction, he leans back down, turning my face into his so I’m able to see not only his eyes but his lips too.

  “Tim and Amy.”

  I nod and cease all movement, choosing instead to focus on him, the way he smells, that same mixture of sweat and talcum powder I smelled the first day and the way it feels being held by him. Following along with his lips as they move, I see that he’s not happy that they’re here and it doesn’t take me long to find out why.

  They’re here for me.

  Dillon

  The minute I found out Cadence would be coming to prom with Eric, I expected something like this to happen, especially with what happened the last time we were here. Where I’d been the ringleader of it before though, this time it was going to be different.

  This time it wasn’t going to go off the way they expect.

  When I called Kayden a few hours ago, making sure everything I asked him for in the hospital was put in motion and ready to go, I bugged him for one more thing. Whatever his feelings are toward me now, he agreed. It’s only when I got in his car, trying to situate myself right so I didn’t aggravate the injuries any more than I already had since getting home that he filled me in on everything I’ve missed.

  It seems that passing by my friends on Wednesday, he caught wind of a plan and even though no one was named, there was only one girl that Amy would want to get revenge on so bad that she’s go out of her way to make it happen. Cadence.

  I have no idea why they planned the damn thing in the hallway, having learned nothing from me over the years, but they did and he was able to catch all of it. Apparently, the idea was to rig the prom queen event the same way we did with Homecoming and make Cadence win it. This is where everything changed from the original plan.

  Tim, having access to the locker room and the ice bath we take sometimes after a game, was going to take a bunch of the water and ice and go up into the rafters above the stage and release it on her.

  There was a time where a plan like that would have sparked interest in me, but those days are over. It’s because of that and who they were going to do it to that I made sure the minute I got in the gym I went right for her. No one was going to repeat Homecoming tonight, not when I’ve been doing everything in my power to make what happened then right again.

  It didn’t even have to be Cadence they were targeting. If they decided Isabelle needed to be the target, I would have done the same thing. The way things used to be, it doesn’t work anymore and even though it took me too damn long to realize it, I’m putting an end to it all now.

  These two, despite who they’ve been to me for the last four years mean absolutely nothing now. They never knew me to begin with, they just knew the person I wanted them to see.

  “So Dill, when did you become a retard lover? Oh wait, that’s right. She’s not retarded, she’s deaf, which is even worse. At least Isabelle can hear the shit we say to her.”

  No matter what they say, I need to keep calm. I refuse to repeat the same mistake I did over a week ago. Cadence is not going to witness me losing my shit on these two even though it’s exactly what I want to do.

  “Nice one Tim, you think that up on your own or are you just recycling my old lines again?”

  Content that I’ve shut him up the minute his mouth wires shut, I turn my attention to the person beside him. The girl that up until a few weeks ago I’d been dating. The girl I claimed to care about, before I knew what real caring was.

  “I know what you’re gonna do and it’s not happening. Next time you wanna destroy someone, try not planning the whole damn thing in a public hallway where anyone can hear.”

  Looking down at Cadence, sliding my hand into hers, I motion toward the door and start walking. Standing there, exactly where I need him to be is Daniels and for the first time since the meeting with my mom, he’s wearing a different look then the normal disdain I’m used to whenever I’m around.

  “What can I do for you Mr. Murphy?” he asks the minute I stop in front of him and just like I did the day he walked me to class, I resist the urge to say something about what he called me, focusing instead on the very real threat my old friends have planned for the girl whose hand I’m gripping tightly in my own.

  “Remember what happened last fall? I didn’t do the right thing that night and we both know it, but tonight, I am. Amy, Tim, Charlotte and Eve, they’re planning on doing something when you announce the prom court. I’m letting you know so you can stop it.”

  He looks me over like he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying and while I know for a fact that Cadence won’t be stepping on that stage tonight, there’s no stopping whoever does take her spot and I don’t want it happening to anyone else. I need to make him believe me.

  “Get someone up in the rafters. You’ll see a bucket of ice water. They’re planning on dumping it on the queen’s head. I know I’ve screwed up a lot and you don’t believe shit that comes out my mouth, but you’re gonna want to believe this.”

  Giving him the facts seems to be all it takes. He nods his head and right before my eyes, he walks away, heading not only for Coach on the other side of the room, but also to where Cadence’s mom is standing. When she looks across the room, catching my eye, she nods her head and smiles and that’s all I need.

  She’s letting me know that even though she doesn’t know what’s going on, she knows I did the right thing this time.

  There’s only one thing left to do now.

  It’s time to go back to the beginning and this time, do it right. It’s time to make Cadence Taylor mine.

  Epilogue

  Cadence

  When he asked me to dance, the way it felt in his arms, even though I couldn’t hear the music and he was the one leading me, holding me as close as possible as we swayed around the gym, it was pivotal. It was a turning point for us; at least I thought it was.

  The dancing is over, the prom court about to be announced and I’m on the sidelines, Dillon nowhere to be found. It
’s obvious that the moment I thought we shared, the way it felt being in his arms again was all in my head. Nothing’s changed. We’re right back where we were on Monday.

  Feeling a body brush against mine, I turn, looking up and hoping to see a particular pair of brown eyes looking back at me, disappointed when I see that it’s a pair of dark eyes alright, but not the ones I’d been desperate for.

  It’s Eric and despite the smile on his face, I still feel destroyed inside. After everything I’ve been through with Dillon, knowing what his life is like and the darkness that surrounds him, I should be with someone like the boy standing beside me now. I should be allowing myself to fall for that smile, the softness in his eyes and instead I’m standing here missing someone that’s his complete opposite.

  He reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a tiny envelope and looking at me, his smile never wavering, he passes it to me and takes a step back. Whatever this is that he’s handed me now, it’s obviously not from him or he wouldn’t feel the need to step back and give me privacy to read it.

  My heart jumps at the thought of what is waiting for me on the inside of the envelope. As I slide the paper out and look at the scrawl on the note card, my heart drops again. It’s not from him, I’d be able to tell his writing anywhere.

  Take a walk with me?

  Looking back over at Eric, again being hit with a smile that seems somehow brighter than before, I smile weakly and motion toward the door, giving him my answer at the same time.

  It’s only when we’ve made our way out of the school and down through the trees that will take me back to the one spot that means something to me that I stop. I’m pretty sure he has no idea what the place he’s taking me means, but I think before he does it I should tell him. I’m not sure how right I feel about going to the ravine knowing it’s the place I had my first kiss and gained my first boyfriend.